QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

Environmental noise usually hinders the efficiency of charge transport through coherent quantum systems; an exception is dephasing-assisted transport (DAT). We show that linear triple quantum dots in a transport configuration and subjected to pure dephasing exhibit DAT if the coupling to the drain reservoir exceeds a threshold. DAT occurs for arbitrarily weak dephasing and the enhancement can be directly controlled by the coupling to the drain. Moreover, for specific settings, the enhanced current is accompanied by a reduction of the relative shot noise.

Two-qubit interactions are at the heart of quantum information processing. For single-spin qubits in semiconductor quantum dots, the exchange gate has always been considered the natural two-qubit gate. The recent integration of a magnetic field or g-factor gradients in coupled quantum dot systems allows for a one-step, robust realization of the controlled-phase (C-phase) gate instead.

Using background-free detection of spin-state-dependent resonance fluorescence from a single-electron charged quantum dot with an efficiency of 0.1%, we realize a classical single spin-photon interface where the detection of a scattered photon with 300 ps time resolution projects the quantum dot spin to a definite spin eigenstate with fidelity exceeding 99%. The bunching of resonantly scattered photons reveals information about electron spin dynamics.

In semiconducting nanowires, both zinc blende and wurtzite crystal structures can coexist. The band structure difference between the two structures can lead to charge confinement. Here we fabricate and study single quantum dot devices defined solely by crystal phase in a chemically homogeneous nanowire and observe single photon generation.

We use a simple iterative perturbation theory to study the singlet-triplet (ST) transition in lateral and vertical quantum dots, modeled by the nonequilibrium two-level Anderson model. To a great surprise, the region of stable perturbation theory extends to relatively strong interactions, and this simple approach is able to reproduce all experimentally observed features of the ST transition, including the formation of a dip in the differential conductance of a lateral dot indicative of the two-stage Kondo effect, or the maximum in the linear conductance around the transition point.

We study the influence of spin polarization on the degree of coherence of electron transport through interacting quantum dots. To this end, we identify transport regimes in which the degree of coherence can be related to the visibility of the Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in the current through a quantum-dot Aharonov-Bohm interferometer with one normal and one ferromagnetic lead. For these regimes, we calculate the visibility and, thus, the degree of coherence, as a function of the degree of spin polarization of the ferromagnetic lead.

The transient response of a quantum dot with strong Coulomb interaction to a fast change in the gate potential, as well as the stationary ac response to a slow harmonic variation in the gate potential are computed by means of a real-time diagrammatic expansion in the tunnel-coupling strength. We find that after a fast switching, the exponential relaxation behavior of charge and spin are governed by a single time constant each, which differ from each other due to Coulomb repulsion. We compare the response to a step potential with the RC time extracted from the ac response.

In order to investigate the effects of interference and interaction in adiabatic pumping, we consider an Aharonov-Bohm (AB) interferometer with a quantum dot embedded either in one or in both arms. We employ a real-time formalism and we perform an expansion both in the tunnel-coupling strengths between dot and leads and in the pumping frequency, taking into account the Coulomb interaction nonperturbatively. We find that pumping in a single-dot AB interferometer has a peristaltic but phase-coherent character.

All-electric devices for the generation and filtering of spin currents are of crucial importance for spintronics experiments and applications. Here we consider a quantum dot with spin-orbit interaction coupled to two metallic leads. After analyzing, the conditions for having nonvanishing spin currents in an adiabatically driven two-terminal device, we focus on a dot with two resonant orbitals and we show by specific examples that both spin filtering and pure spin current generation can be achieved. Finally, we discuss the effect of the Coulomb interaction.